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To help make life better for you, my loyal readers, I live by Windows 7 and 10 on my two – never hurt anyone in their lives – PCs. Well, I did not. But, in the last week I ran into one, but two, showstopper update bugs.
First, on Windows 10, I was one of those "lucky" people who had updated their files when I "updated" to Windows 10 October 2018 Update (version 1809). Because I only use Windows for trivial tasks, I did not lose anything valuable when I decided to write everything in the My Documents folder.
Somehow, I think most Windows users use Windows for more important work than I do. I hope you have current backups. At least ComputerworldWoody Leonhard has some good news: You can get those deleted files back.
The story, Microsoft now admits, is that the 1809 release erases, for some people, all files in the Documents, Pictures, Music, and Videos folders. The folders are still there, but nothing is left in them. It's coming out of the neutron bomb of Windows updates.
How could this happen? Seriously, how do you have this release? Where was the quality assurance team? Windows 10 Insider Preview users? Oh, wait. The brave beta users had seen this problem! ZDNet's Ed Bottled last week that he'd found a report from a month ago that said that "my Documents folder had been overwritten with a new Documents folder, complete with custom icon. All contents were gone. "
Once more, and with feeling: WTH, Microsoft!
You can not call this a fluke. It's not as if Windows 10 is some Teflon-coated operating system that has never done anything wrong with its updates. Remember the April 2018 Update (version 1803)? That's the one that had conned with SSD drivers and Avast antivirus software. I remember, and not fondly.
How hard is this really, Microsoft? You literally have millions of Preview users. At least one of them spotted this newest bug months before release. There may be a lot of people running in this problem, but anything bad to destroy users' files should be a red letter, fix-it-now bug. It has been proved that the Microsoft has stopped the 1809 upgrade in its tracks until the problem gets resolved.
Which, as I write this on Oct. 7, has not happened; the problem remains unfixed.
Meanwhile, over on my windows 7 box, I ran into that good old mysteryerror 0x8000FFFF "notice. Lots of things can cause this error. The effect is always the same. You can not update Windows.
I do not know about you, but I do not know how to run Windows PCs without the latest security updates. I'm funny that way.
In this latest go-round, I could not install Microsoft's most recent security update. This one had me puzzled.
It turns out – with me, because this gets messy – I had not installed a critical (but not security-related) servicing stack update (SSU), KB 3177467, that Microsoft had released in October 2016. Unless I have a particular reason to do it, I do not install all critical Windows fixed. This will teach me. It turns out that the Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1) patch was not marked as being related to security, though it was.
I was not alone with this problem. Enterprises were hit, too. Microsoft staffer John Wilcox said that "many organizations fail to install the default monthly security fixes instead of the full servicing stack update."
Wilcox, with the Windows 10 mess, also explained how Microsoft missed this problem. "We test our monthly patches on fully patched, up-to-date systems, which is why this issue was not in our testing, or by any of our preview partners." I appreciate the candor.
Going forward, this blunder will not happen again. Well, at least not exactly like this. First, Microsoft is reissuing the September update and tagging it as a security update.
Next, Microsoft is updating all releases notes so they are ready to install the latest SSU for your platform before installing the latest cumulative update. You do not read the release notes, do not you? I do not care what operating system or program you're running, reading release notes will save you a lot of grievance.
Finally, if you do not read the notes, all future SSUs will be marked as "security," not just "critical." This way, if you're still installing security, you will not be caught out again.
It's worth noting that even today I prefer Windows 7 to 10, and I find it more than a little ironic that the Windows 7 episode. Which leads to another question for Microsoft: Are you sure you want to kill off Windows 7? Just asking!
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